I'm home now! Kind of a bitter-sweet feeling. I had such a good time in Mexico.
On the last day (Thursday), we went to the beach in San Carlos. It was absolutely beautiful -- there's no way the pictures I took do it justice. The beach was packed with people because it's Holy Week, which I guess is a pretty big holiday for them. Unfortunaley the water was spotted with jelly fish. I was too nervous to spend too much time in there, so I just went in for a little bit. I spent the rest of the time walking along the beach, tidepooling and laying out.
Afterwards we went to a place called froggy's and all had dinner as one big group. A mariochi band came in and played us some music while we ate. We didn't want to go back to Hermosillo just yet, so we decided to walk around and found that that was the thing to do. Herds of people lined the streets and as we walked up a down the streets we would stop and dance and laugh and just have the best time. It reminded me of spring break in St George cause there was nothing particularly special about the street, people just hung out and partied all night.
Today (Wednesday), I went back to the womens hospital and got to see some really cool stuff! I watched a lot of natural births. Most of the women were so young -- I was so suprised. I also saw the procedure for a miscarriage for a 14 year old girl. The c-sections I saw were really great too. One of them was on a 9 pound baby! It was kind of scary because it took them a while to get the big guy out. I guess once they break the sac, they only have so much time to get the baby out safely but because this baby was just so big a couple of the doctors had to literally put their entire body weight into pushing on the mom's abdomen to get the baby to come out. Then of course there was the whole grabbing of the head thing which drives me crazy. They pull so hard you'd think that there must be a breaking point. Oh man, the babies were so cute and wonderful. Whenever we had an down time we would just go in the room where they take the fresh babies and we would just hold them.
One thing that I thought was interesting was that they don't really allow the mothers to hold their babies right after they're born. Once the baby is born they clean it up, bring it over to the mother just to show her, them take it off to another room for about an hour. Is that the way it is here in the states? I guess I would wanna hold my baby for a bit if I went through all that trouble to get the darn thing out of me. I do understand that the mother is exhausted beyond belief and probably needs to rest anyway.
I spent the day at the childrens hospital. We didn't have a translator with us so it was kinda boring for the first bit but we found a nurse that was happy to try to speak English with us.
Anyway, I spent the first few hours walking around the neonatal unit. it was so so touching. the babies were so small and helpless. I figured that most of these babies don't get enough physical affection so i just walked around and caressed them as much as I could. it was heartbreaking cause most of them had tubes sticking out every which way. I watched a nurse trying to take some blood from a few babies. I would never want to try to start an IV...her veins are just so tiny. A lot of the babies had a bunch of hair growing on their faces and backs because they were so emaciated. I got to hold one of the really small babies and calm her down after one of the nurses tried to take some blood with a big needle.
The trip to Hermsillo Mexico was was organized by Southern Utah University. Fourty of us piled into vans and drove 18 hours straight from Cedar City Utah to Hermosillo, Mexico! Technically I didn´t drive -- I just slept most of the time, and I think that my ability to sleep during horifically long trips is one of the greatest blessings I have been given.
Hermosillo is a pretty big city. I haven´t had the chance to look around, but I look forward to it. Today we drove to Guaymus where the other half of our group is staying (there are about 25 of us in Hermosillo and 15 in Guaymas). We went to church there...which was interesting cause half of the locals came in jeans and they let their kids run rampid...hard to get a reverent feel.
Afterward we got some lunch and then played at the beach all day! It was so beautiful. Í´m really excited for this experience. The people that I came with are really cool and lots of fun.
Tomorrow I have my first day at the hospital! Right now we´re about to head to a park and get some hot dogs, so we are still in "arrival mode."
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